Fart_Machine:LargeCanine: Agreed. No one should receive subsidies or bailouts. Its wrong when either party does it.

The FDIC is insurance because without it we'd get the bank runs that contributed to the crash of the economy back in the 1930's. It isn't a subsidy or a bailout.

I have not said anything about FDIC insurance, nor is FDIC insurance an issue for me. Its pretty minor compared to TARP, Stimulus spending, green subsidies, bank bailouts, etc. You should be having this discussion with that o5iiwah guy.

LargeCanine:When you have something interesting to say, I may decide to reply.

That OK. You don't need to keep me in suspense of your intellectual prowess any longer. "Ploink"

o5iiawah:I have every idea what I am talking about. I clearly broke them down as two separate government intrusions in the banking market which provide no incentive for banks to make good bets (bailouts) and no incentive for depositors to choose good banks (FDIC).

No you really don't since the FDIC has been around for over 70 years without a problem. Deregulating courtesy of the Commodities Futures Modernization Act had been around since 2000. Which one had an actual impact? Hmmmmmmn......

LargeCanine:Zeppelininthesky: LargeCanine: Mrtraveler01: LargeCanine: Nah. The economy would have recovered years ago if it were not for Obama's policies.

And it would've stopped the economic crisis in Europe from happening too right?

Europe's ecconomic issues are self-inflicted, much like ours.

So you agree that Bush's bad policies tanked the economy? Good to know.

Your debate technique does you no credit.

Bush's weak dollar policy and failure to restrain spending were wrong and bad for the long term health of the economy. Obama's policies include and even weaker dollar and even more deficit spending. Bush's policies were bad, Obama's an order of magnitude worse.

You are showing everyone you have no clue what the heck you are talking about.

The most difficult aspect of the current crisis to contain was that roughly 80% of nonprime loans were made by entities not subject to direct federal regulation (primarily mortgage bankers). (Note that this also meant they were not subject to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and to requirements to file criminal referrals.)

The Federal Reserve (Fed), however, had unique statutory authority to regulate all mortgage lenders under the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act of 1994 (HOEPA), but Greenspan and Bernanke refused to use it. Finally, over a year after the secondary market in nonprime loans (CDOs) collapsed, and after Congressional pressure to act, the Fed used its HOEPA authority to order an end to some of the most abusive nonprime lending practices.

Prior to that time, the federal regulatory agencies acted aggressively throughout the decade to assert federal ―pre-emption of state regulation as a means of attempting to prevent the states from protecting their citizens from predatory nonprime lenders.

All the regulators needed to do to prevent the crisis was ban lending practices that were rational only for control frauds engaged in looting. The regulators consistently refused to do so because of their anti-regulatory ideology. Traditional mortgage underwriting practices are highly effective against fraud. The regulators knew what reforms would work, but refused to mandate the reforms

Read all this testimony and get back to us, Forbes: Link (PDF) William Black, 03/12 Senate Judiciary Committee/nothing much good to say about Obama, either (but no mention of H.G. Wells)

FTFA: No, Obama apologists can't say the recovery has been so bad because the recession was so bad, as the American historical experience is the worse the recession the stronger the recovery.

The American historical experience is also to raise taxes to support war efforts, not to start two wars and cut taxes. The American historical experience is also to have two parties that will eventually get things done. I'm pretty sure the last congress (last two, perhaps) were the least productive in decades.

Zeppelininthesky:LargeCanine: Zeppelininthesky: LargeCanine: Mrtraveler01: LargeCanine: Nah. The economy would have recovered years ago if it were not for Obama's policies.

And it would've stopped the economic crisis in Europe from happening too right?

Europe's ecconomic issues are self-inflicted, much like ours.

So you agree that Bush's bad policies tanked the economy? Good to know.

Your debate technique does you no credit.

Bush's weak dollar policy and failure to restrain spending were wrong and bad for the long term health of the economy. Obama's policies include and even weaker dollar and even more deficit spending. Bush's policies were bad, Obama's an order of magnitude worse.

You are showing everyone you have no clue what the heck you are talking about.

LargeCanine:Zeppelininthesky: LargeCanine: Zeppelininthesky: LargeCanine: Mrtraveler01: LargeCanine: Nah. The economy would have recovered years ago if it were not for Obama's policies.

And it would've stopped the economic crisis in Europe from happening too right?

Europe's ecconomic issues are self-inflicted, much like ours.

So you agree that Bush's bad policies tanked the economy? Good to know.

Your debate technique does you no credit.

Bush's weak dollar policy and failure to restrain spending were wrong and bad for the long term health of the economy. Obama's policies include and even weaker dollar and even more deficit spending. Bush's policies were bad, Obama's an order of magnitude worse.

You are showing everyone you have no clue what the heck you are talking about.

How to argue

How exactly did the economy get worse than it was in 2007? Give me specific examples.

Granny_Panties: Now log back into your other account randomjsa. We all know it's you. Get over yourself. You'll screw up and out yourself in a more obvious manor eventually.

I figured that's why you edited my name onto his reply. It's odd when I get an email alert saying someone is quoting me and the reply is completely foreign. Your ability to assess sockpuppets is worse than your economic acumen. I hope you aren't speaking for everyone. I'd hate to think less of people I already spend too much time thinking less of.

I agree with Mrbogey. Randomjsa is completely nutso. Mrbogey is more coherent, although wrong.

I love how some people never seemed to care that over 4000 American soldiers died for a lie in Iraq, but cannot get over that 2 members of AL-QAEDA were hosed in a country they can't spell. And they expect someone..anyone to take them seriously? Is this what criticism of Obama amounts to?

I love how some people never seemed to care that over 4000 American soldiers died for a lie in Iraq, but cannot get over that 2 members of AL-QAEDA were hosed in a country they can't spell. And they expect someone..anyone to take them seriously? Is this what criticism of Obama amounts to?

I love how some people never seemed to care that over 4000 American soldiers died for a lie in Iraq, but cannot get over that 2 members of AL-QAEDA were hosed in a country they can't spell. And they expect someone..anyone to take them seriously? Is this what criticism of Obama amounts to?

Some people genuinely seem to hate Obama more than they hate actual terrorists. Kind of hilarious, really.

I love how some people never seemed to care that over 4000 American soldiers died for a lie in Iraq, but cannot get over that 2 members of AL-QAEDA were hosed in a country they can't spell. And they expect someone..anyone to take them seriously? Is this what criticism of Obama amounts to?

Some people genuinely seem to hate Obama more than they hate actual terrorists. Kind of hilarious, really.

I love how some people never seemed to care that over 4000 American soldiers died for a lie in Iraq, but cannot get over that 2 members of AL-QAEDA were hosed in a country they can't spell. And they expect someone..anyone to take them seriously? Is this what criticism of Obama amounts to?

Some people genuinely seem to hate Obama more than they hate actual terrorists. Kind of hilarious, really.

Some of those same people think he is a terrorist.

Try to remember these people are the same group that listened to Obama give a speech saying, "Nazis were bad," and replied with, "Of course Obama doesn't understand all the GOOD things the nazis did."

Mrbogey:Tell Me How My Blog Tastes: Um, so are you saying that privatizing social security and medicare are good ideas?

Had we partially privatized SS as was proposed by Republicans circa 2005, those eligible would have started investing in early 2009. They would begin retiring next year. The growth rate from 2009 to current in the market would have been wildly beneficial. The gov't would have unloaded debt obligation and retirees would have made significant financial growth in their retirement accounts.

This is looking back of course but it disproves the argument of the dangers of privatized accounts.

Medicare will eventually collapse either way at this point so old people are farked either way.

Your argument for the benefits of privatizing social security is that after the market crashed and hit bottom in 2009 that the people fortunate enough to start investing then would see a great return. Well, holy shiat, you're a genius. If you just ignore the clusterfark that killed retirement accounts (i.e. the danger of investing) that opened before 2009 then everything is super duper! What about the people who were already retired or were just about to retire when the markets tanked? If only there were some way for retirees to make ends meat while their investments regained value....

I love how some people never seemed to care that over 4000 American soldiers died for a lie in Iraq, but cannot get over that 2 members of AL-QAEDA were hosed in a country they can't spell. And they expect someone..anyone to take them seriously? Is this what criticism of Obama amounts to?

They actually dont care. See, if you notice, after it was slowly and carefully explained to them for the 23rd time that Benghazi wasnt a scandal but instead a political dead end, they all 'coincidentally' shifted to this topic. All their posts are now the same, screaming 'Obama drones (and CHILDREN)!' because they were told to say it. It is an important issue, but if they werent ordered to parrot outrage, they would never have given a fark in the first place.

o5iiawah:rewind2846: Once regulation after regulation after law after law was repealed from the Carter administration through today, giving Wall Street unprecedented power and control over the national economy,

Wall street would have no control over the economy if it didn't have government there to back up its bad bets and false financial products. What Enron did was illegal. What bernie Madoff did was illegal. What Allen Sanford did was illegal. People dont give a shiat where their bank invests their money because their deposits are guaranteed by the FDIC and the banks have no incentive to invest responsibly because their bets are backed up by the Fed and "too big to fail"

This is precisely the mindset I just wrote about. o5iiwah seems to believe that these banks and financial institutions just had to engage in their risky, illegal and downright stupid practices because "the government made them".

If the government won't come to arrest you and put you in prison, would you go out and kill people? Steal from them? Rape them? When these people on Wall Street do the things they do, are they doing them "because they have the backing of the government", or are they doing the things they do because they are amoral greedy assholes?

That's the dividing line here. Don't blame the government for these people doing evil, blame the evil people for doing evil.

/just finished watching "ENRON: The Smartest Guys In The Room"//why there weren't people burned at the stake for this sh*t I will never understand

rewind2846:This is precisely the mindset I just wrote about. o5iiwah seems to believe that these banks and financial institutions just had to engage in their risky, illegal and downright stupid practices because "the government made them".

My favorite part of his argument is that every depositor who utilizes a bank for their savings or checking account should do a complete research of all the diversified assets in that entity or we get to laugh at them for losing their money.

rewind2846:If the government won't come to arrest you and put you in prison, would you go out and kill people? Steal from them? Rape them? When these people on Wall Street do the things they do, are they doing them "because they have the backing of the government", or are they doing the things they do because they are amoral greedy assholes?

Good freaking lord, you are dumb.

Theres nothing to be gained out of the raw act of murder or rape. What inspires the otherwise sane to commit rape (human sex trafficking) or murder (hits for hire) is money - even though both acts are illegal people still do it. You act so surprised that if you remove the penalty of failure from a person or company, that you will eventually see them resorting to the most drastic measures to make as much money or extract as much gain as possible since other players in the game are doing the same thing. You call it "greed" to give it a pejorative that some occupier or Mother Jones editorial page taught you to repeat ad nauseam. The rest of us who know the world simply call it rational self-interest.

In the tragedy of the commons, there's no incentive for a fisherman to moderate his catch in the name of sustainability if he cant be certain that others will be severely punished for being greedy and overfishing. A fisherman who only catches his quota might find that others have overfished, leaving the fishery depleted and since there is no penalty for overfishing, each player assumes the other will try to maximize his gain.

Fart_Machine:My favorite part of his argument is that every depositor who utilizes a bank for their savings or checking account should do a complete research of all the diversified assets in that entity or we get to laugh at them for losing their money.

My credit union hands one out every quarter and it takes me roughly 10-15 mins to go through it. People will spend all day at a car dealership, apple store or trying on clothes but dont give a crap who has their money and what is being done with it. When you think about buying a video game, you read the review on IGN. When you think about seeing a movie, you read the reviews on rottentomatoes. Why are you so against people acting like adults?

Baryogenesis:What about the people who were already retired or were just about to retire when the markets tanked? If only there were some way for retirees to make ends meat while their investments regained value....

If you are less than 10 years from retirement, you probably shouldn't have 100% of your income tied up in the stock market, or a single investment idea. In fact, if you are 55 or older, 80% of your portfolio should be rock-solid bonds or cash money. A senior who invested 80/20 in 2008 would have lost 10% of their portfolio and 5 years later, would have earned it all back

If you walk into a bank and ask to speak with a retirement professional, they will tell you this in the first 5 minutes of the conversation.

o5iiawah:In the tragedy of the commons, there's no incentive for a fisherman to moderate his catch in the name of sustainability if he cant be certain that others will be severely punished for being greedy and overfishing. A fisherman who only catches his quota might find that others have overfished, leaving the fishery depleted and since there is no penalty for overfishing, each player assumes the other will try to maximize his gain.

So are we now back to blaming the government for not regulating enough?

o5iiawah:Baryogenesis: What about the people who were already retired or were just about to retire when the markets tanked? If only there were some way for retirees to make ends meat while their investments regained value....

If you are less than 10 years from retirement, you probably shouldn't have 100% of your income tied up in the stock market, or a single investment idea. In fact, if you are 55 or older, 80% of your portfolio should be rock-solid bonds or cash money. A senior who invested 80/20 in 2008 would have lost 10% of their portfolio and 5 years later, would have earned it all back

If you walk into a bank and ask to speak with a retirement professional, they will tell you this in the first 5 minutes of the conversation.

Oh good, that totally explains why American retirement accounts didn't lose trillions of dollars in value and there were no people who lost huge chunks of their savings.

NewportBarGuy:Does anyone want to explain to this douche that it usually takes a full fiscal year before any tinkering actually shows up in indicators? That would chop off two years of his 5 year time frame and force him to explain the wonders caused under Bush the Lesser.

Hell, Obama wasn't even President for the first f*cking year of that 5 years. What an asshole.

Didn't you notice that he blamed the global financial crisis on the Democrat Congress that was elected in 2006? It was the Democrats' fault when Congress was D and Bush was in charge, but now that Obama is in charge and Congress is R, it's the Democrats' fault.

NewportBarGuy:Does anyone want to explain to this douche that it usually takes a full fiscal year before any tinkering actually shows up in indicators? That would chop off two years of his 5 year time frame and force him to explain the wonders caused under Bush the Lesser.

Hell, Obama wasn't even President for the first f*cking year of that 5 years. What an asshole.

Baryogenesis:Your argument for the benefits of privatizing social security is that after the market crashed and hit bottom in 2009 that the people fortunate enough to start investing then would see a great return. Well, holy shiat, you're a genius. If you just ignore the clusterfark that killed retirement accounts (i.e. the danger of investing) that opened before 2009 then everything is super duper! What about the people who were already retired or were just about to retire when the markets tanked? If only there were some way for retirees to make ends meat while their investments regained value....

Since you failed to realize that 2009 was the target year back when the law was proposed for the program to start I'm going to guess that you've not done a lot of research into it. In a typical portfolio a lifetime return averages slightly higher than SS which is around 2%. So yea, if someone invested in a typical fund across several years they'll outpace SS in their return. It's just highly amusing that had we gone with partial SS privatization we'd have a lower obligation for SS further down the road, retirees would have a fatter retirement, and our credit rating would be rosier instead of redder.

Mrbogey:It's just highly amusing that had we gone with partial SS privatization we'd have a lower obligation for SS further down the road, retirees would have a fatter retirement, and our credit rating would be rosier instead of redder.

It would be even more amusing when Wall Street inflates and pops another bubble with that sweet, sweet SS money, wiping out retirees' savings AND their safety net all in one go.

Baryogenesis:o5iiawah: Baryogenesis: What about the people who were already retired or were just about to retire when the markets tanked? If only there were some way for retirees to make ends meat while their investments regained value....

If you are less than 10 years from retirement, you probably shouldn't have 100% of your income tied up in the stock market, or a single investment idea. In fact, if you are 55 or older, 80% of your portfolio should be rock-solid bonds or cash money. A senior who invested 80/20 in 2008 would have lost 10% of their portfolio and 5 years later, would have earned it all back

If you walk into a bank and ask to speak with a retirement professional, they will tell you this in the first 5 minutes of the conversation.

Oh good, that totally explains why American retirement accounts didn't lose trillions of dollars in value and there were no people who lost huge chunks of their savings.

Caveat emptor. If you're 5 years from retirement, dont bet your whole nest egg on stocks.Talk to a retirement professional. They will tell you this.

Sergeant Grumbles:So are we now back to blaming the government for not regulating enough?

You really haven't refuted rewind's argument, you've justified it.

I sometimes wonder how an individual, presumably with a public school education could extrapolate that out of what i said. Government removed the penalty of failure from banking institutions that made risky bets, therefore banks were presented with a situation where they had no downside and tremendous upside to engaging in risky loans and junk financial products trading.

If banking were so deregulated, then after the collapse in 2008, the government would have auctioned all the assets off in bankruptcy court to credit unions and smaller banks that wanted to take a flyer on servicing the debt - likely for pennies on the dollar.

Mrbogey:And yet across a typical lifetime retirement targeted funds haven't had that happen.

Already addressed.

Baryogenesis:Oh good, that totally explains why American retirement accounts didn't lose trillions of dollars in value and there were no people who lost huge chunks of their savings.

Mrbogey:I don't see why you're insisting we all buy insurance policies that are likely to be voided before we collect on them. Seems rather foolish.

Nice way to move those goalposts. SS is fine with minimal tinkering. It's more foolish to turn all that money over to Wall Street. They really want to get their hands on it, and it's not to provide a better retirement for grandma.

After the fact. After it became apparent that they had failed so spectacularly they could bring down the entire economy. After a decade of them assuring us they could police themselves. Before? Banks were overfishing, as per your example. They could have chosen to be sustainable, and in fact, some did, but the large majority wiped out their stocks, as per the fish analogy. The government had no hand in the banks' bad behavior.

o5iiawah:If banking were so deregulated, then after the collapse in 2008, the government would have auctioned all the assets off in bankruptcy court to credit unions and smaller banks that wanted to take a flyer on servicing the debt - likely for pennies on the dollar.

Even that would have required MORE regulation, numbnuts. And I can just hear the Republican screeches that government selling off bank assets is a gross intrusion into the free market. I heard that enough with "Government Motors".Stop with this morbid fantasy that deregulation works both ways.

o5iiawah:My credit union hands one out every quarter and it takes me roughly 10-15 mins to go through it. People will spend all day at a car dealership, apple store or trying on clothes but dont give a crap who has their money and what is being done with it. When you think about buying a video game, you read the review on IGN. When you think about seeing a movie, you read the reviews on rottentomatoes. Why are you so against people acting like adults?

/facepalm

You're really comparing trying on clothes and videogames to the maze of diversified investment that the Commodities Futures Modernization Act allowed banks to delve into? Seriously? Complaining about insurance for consumer depositors that has been around for over 70 years as contributing to banks getting mixed up in bad investments while deregulation allowed them to do so in the first place? And you wonder why people don't take you seriously.

Sergeant Grumbles:After the fact. After it became apparent that they had failed so spectacularly they could bring down the entire economy. After a decade of them assuring us they could police themselves. Before? Banks were overfishing, as per your example. They could have chosen to be sustainable, and in fact, some did, but the large majority wiped out their stocks, as per the fish analogy. The government had no hand in the banks' bad behavior.

This. The same morans who claim "the government made them do it" are also the ones who wanted them deregulated in the first place because they claimed it hindered the inspiration of the market.

Sergeant Grumbles:Mrbogey: And yet across a typical lifetime retirement targeted funds haven't had that happen.

Already addressed.

Baryogenesis: Oh good, that totally explains why American retirement accounts didn't lose trillions of dollars in value and there were no people who lost huge chunks of their savings.

Mrbogey: I don't see why you're insisting we all buy insurance policies that are likely to be voided before we collect on them. Seems rather foolish. Nice way to move those goalposts. SS is fine with minimal tinkering. It's more foolish to turn all that money over to Wall Street. They really want to get their hands on it, and it's not to provide a better retirement for grandma.

If by addressed, you mean a post was made with a connection. If by addressed you mean a coherent response that rebuts the argument was made, then no.

I stated funds and plans. Not individual stock investments played like a slot machine. At no point was a complete divestment proposed that allowed people to invest in individual stocks were proposed.

Look, I get it that your ideology can't ever be wrong in your reality. However, in this reality, it's wrong.

It was. You can't turn around and claim the 2008 crash didn't happen just because some investments have recovered. We're not talking about overall market health, we're talking about individuals, with funds and plans that were STILL wiped out by stock market tomfoolery.

Sergeant Grumbles:Even that would have required MORE regulation, numbnuts. And I can just hear the Republican screeches that government selling off bank assets is a gross intrusion into the free market. I heard that enough with "Government Motors".Stop with this morbid fantasy that deregulation works both ways.

You really are dumb.

The operation of bankruptcy courts is a legitimate, enumerated power of our federal government. General motors did not go through lawful bankruptcy else it would have been divested according to the wishes of the bondholders. That never happened.

Fart_Machine:You're really comparing trying on clothes and videogames to the maze of diversified investment that the Commodities Futures Modernization Act allowed banks to delve into? Seriously? Complaining about insurance for consumer depositors that has been around for over 70 years as contributing to banks getting mixed up in bad investments while deregulation allowed them to do so in the first place? And you wonder why people don't take you seriously.

I can read by Credit union's quarterly balance sheet in about 20 minutes. I guess that is too much to ask.

Sergeant Grumbles:After the fact. After it became apparent that they had failed so spectacularly they could bring down the entire economy. After a decade of them assuring us they could police themselves. Before? Banks were overfishing, as per your example. They could have chosen to be sustainable, and in fact, some did, but the large majority wiped out their stocks, as per the fish analogy. The government had no hand in the banks' bad behavior.

Government encourages banks to make loans to people who cant pay them. Government assures banks that the public treasury will back those loans ($9Tn in assets held by Fannie and Freddy) Government assures banks are too big to fail. Banks fail. Government bails out banks. But apparently banks arent regulated enough.

Again, no sensible reasonable bank would decide to trade in absurd financial products without some assurance that they would be bailed out or able to offload their assets onto the public treasury. Seeing as how both happened, I'd say my point is proven.

It was. You can't turn around and claim the 2008 crash didn't happen just because some investments have recovered. We're not talking about overall market health, we're talking about individuals, with funds and plans that were STILL wiped out by stock market tomfoolery.

We'd have a more productive discussion if you read what was written and reply cogently.

My retirement account is held by fidelity. They provide, to me, 15 options to invest my money for retirement. Across five years(Jan2008) the worst performing one was -1.66%. The best was 8.24%. So from the height to today there's a slight loss to slight gain.

Again, stop acting as if the proposals would have allowed single stock "slot machine" investing.

If an investor was allowed, per the proposed 2005 legislation, to begin investing they'd have seen between 3 to 18% return easily from 2009 to today. That beats the SS return of 2%.So yea, in retrospect retirees are worse off today than had the plans gone forth.

o5iiawah:I can read by Credit union's quarterly balance sheet in about 20 minutes. I guess that is too much to ask.

And I thank you for completely ignoring or missing the point. But I'm glad you brought this up. Most Credit Unions are not-for-profit cooperatives who don't have to worry about satisfying shareholders and they're highly regulated. They also cover their depositors with federal insurance under the NCUA. Banks on the other hand were deregulated and pursued risky investments because they had to satisfy stockbrokers as well as their own bottom line. It wasn't because of the FDIC. It was because they were greedy and were pressured to satisfy investors.

o5iiawah:Government encourages banks to make loans to people who cant pay them.

Mrbogey:All major funds have recovered from the crash. Im not glossing over it.

You did. Right there.It matters for next time. What happens to all those funds and plans that have their value wiped out the next time the market crashes? What happens to all those people trying to retire?Because there's no talk or effort to prevent crashes. Oh no, it's deregulate this, deregulate that, the market is never wrong, the marker always provides, the market always recovers, we'll police ourselves just like we did last time.... except the next time they'll be able to get their hands on that sweet SS money that's currently sitting there doing nothing but waiting for grandma. And I'll bet you dimes to farking dollars that it won't be grandma that's going to see the return if or when the market recovers.Leave SS as retirement insurance. It's not supposed to be an investment.

Mrbogey:Please, a pussy like you place a bet? Your vagina is quivering over the idea that you may take a 1% loss.

Still missing the point.

Mrbogey:I'll make a deal with you. I won't advocate for SS reform as long as you refuse to save or invest any funds. You have to live solely off of what SS provides. No pension. No 401k. No IRA.

Are you up for it?

Wow, strike three.

You do realize the market recovering in 3-4 years means jack and shiat if you money NOW?SS is at least a baseline to fall back on assuming nothing else works out, giving you time and money to survive those 3-4 years.It's insurance, not an investment.It doesn't matter that it doesn't provide the greatest return, what matters is that you have a safety net if your other retirement options don't pan out.You can make more money investing your health insurance premiums than you probably will using it for healthcare. Do you think that's a good idea or a bad idea?

Sergeant Grumbles:SS is at least a baseline to fall back on assuming nothing else works out, giving you time and money to survive those 3-4 years.

So, you're taking me up on it and refusing to have any other investments?

Look, we get it. You suck at long term planning and you're incapable of taking care of yourself. Stop assuming everyone else is as dumb as you.

Besides, I proved already that almost everyone today today would be better off with the 2005 SS partial privatization plans due to the way it was structured and how the market has done over the past 4 years.. The math's against you. Suck it up and move on.

Sergeant Grumbles:Sergeant Grumbles: You can make more money investing your health insurance premiums than you probably will using it for healthcare. Do you think that's a good idea or a bad idea?

Not always true. As a young person who spends no money on healthcare then yes. Putting the funds you'd spend on a Cadillac plan into a fund and then buying catastrophic coverage would be the way to go. As you get older it's better to go towards full coverage.

That's smart investing. Demanding everyone be a dumb investor by banking on SS is a bad idea and you should feel bad for it.

Sergeant Grumbles:Unless you get sick.Just like privatizing SS works unless the market tanks.

That's the whole point.That's why it's insurance, not investment.

This is really difficult to explain to you since you apparently lack the ability to understand basic arguments and the experience to understand how insurance and investments work.

Let me repeat this the only way possible... with caps.

CATASTROPHIC INSURANCE!!!! It means you pay a low premium that covers virtually nothing but the worst cases because typically minor illnesses will not rack up enough to warrant the thousands each year in premiums.

I brought up the whole 2009 investing thing because it's a real world example of why your thinking fails. Even if people invested before 2009 the market recovered those losses for most any approved fund. Each post you're proving how much of a failure you are at basic planning. Let's hope Darwin works and your line dwindles. The world needs less paste eaters.